Tom, Dick and Harry Part 39

Masters and school attendants were talking in groups in the quadrangle.

Boys were flitting across in the direction of the gymnasium; and seniors in twos and threes were deferring their morning dip and hovering about in serious confabulation.

"Something up?" said Trimble, with ill-concealed artlessness. "I wonder what it is?"

"Looks like a row of some sort," said Langrish. "What are all the chaps going across to the gym. for, I wonder?"

"Let's go and see," said c.o.xhead.

"We needn't all go together," said Warminster, significantly. So one by one, casually, and at studied distances from our comrades, the Philosophers dropped into the crowd and made for the scene of last night's accident.

I felt terribly nervous. Suppose some one had been killed, or suppose the gymnasium had been burnt, and suspicion fell on any one, what a fix it would be!

In my distress I met d.i.c.ky Brown, full of news.

"Hullo, Jones, I say, have you heard? Some chap's been trying to blow up the gym. in the night, and there's a row and a half on. The front door is smashed, and the floor all knocked to bits. Come and have a look."

"Any one killed or hurt?"

"I've not heard. Didn't you hear the noise?"

"Yes. Our chaps heard a row in the night."

"We could hear it at our place," said Brown. "They say the chap's known who did it, too."

"Who?"

"How do I know? Some chap who's been extra drilled, most likely."

"There's plenty of them," suggested I.

"Well, yes. They say a lot of gunpowder had been stowed in the lumber room just under the door. There, do you see?"

We had reached the scene of the tragedy, and I was able to judge of the mischief which had been done. The door was broken, but whether by the explosion or ordinary violence it was hard to say. The floor and grating over the lumber room were broken away, and one or two windows were smashed. That was all. My first feeling was one of relief that the damage was so slight. I had pictured the whole building a wreck, and a row of mangled remains on stretchers all round. Compared with that, our poor guy had really made a very slight disturbance. Of him I was thankful to be able to observe no trace, except one tan boot and a fragment of a ginger-beer bottle in the area. That indeed was bad enough, but, I argued, the lumber room was full of old cast-off shoes and bottles, and these would probably be set down as fragments of the rubbish displaced by the explosion.

Brown, however, and others to whom I spoke, failed to share my view of the slightness of the damage.

"If the fellow's found, it will be a case of the police court for him."

The blood left my face as I heard the awful words. It had never occurred to me yet that the matter was one of more than school concern.

Visions of penal servitude and a broken-hearted mother swam before my eyes. Oh, why had I ever left the tranquil seclusion of Fallowfield for this awful place?

As soon as possible I edged quietly out of the crowd, and made my way dismally back to Sharpe's, where I met not a few of our fellows, all eager for news.

I was too sick to give them much information, and sent them to inspect for themselves while I made my way dismally to Tempest's room.

He was up, reading.

"Hullo, youngster," said he, "what's all the row about? What was that noise in the quad, last night? were some of your lot fooling about with fireworks?"

"Don't you know?" gasped I, fairly taken aback with the question. "Why, some one's been trying to blow up the gymnasium!"

"What!" he exclaimed. "Why, _I_ was there, not long before the noise.

Who's done it?"

"That's what n.o.body knows. I'm afraid there'll be a row about it."

"Any fool could tell that," said Tempest, with troubled face.

"I wish you hadn't been there," said I; "they may think it was you."

"Let them," said he, with a laugh which was anything but merry. I was longing to hear what had happened to him last night, but he did not volunteer any information, and I did not care to question him.

Horribly uneasy, I was about to seek the questionable consolations of my comrades, when the school messenger entered with a long face.

"Master Tempest, the head master wants to see you at once."

"All right," said Tempest.

"He said I was to bring you."

"If you want to carry me, you may," said Tempest, with a short laugh; "if not, wait a moment and I'll come. Jones, tell Pridgin I want to speak to him--wait, I'll go to him."

The school messenger looked as if he felt it his duty to take the senior at his word. Had Tempest been a smaller boy, he might have done so. As it was, he repeated,--

"At once, please, sir."

Tempest took no notice, but went across the pa.s.sage to his friend's room.

When he reappeared in a minute or two, Pridgin was with him, and without taking further notice of the messenger's presence the two walked arm-in- arm out of the house and across the quadrangle.

The news of the summons spread like wildfire. The Philosophers, when in due time they mustered in the f.a.ggery after their inspection of the scene of the outrage, were not slow in taking in the seriousness of the situation.

"Of course he's suspected. It's all your fault, you a.s.s, for being such a m.u.f.f and letting Jarman catch you. You can't do a thing without making a mess of it."

"How could I help it?" I pleaded.

"Couldn't you have fetched his blazer for him without running into that cad's way?"

"What I can't make out," said Langrish, "is how Tempest knew about the guy and was able to let it off."

"I don't believe he did," said I. "I'm sure he didn't."

"You'd believe anything. Things like that don't go off by themselves, do they?"

I was bound to admit they did not, but persisted in my belief that Tempest had nothing to do with it.

But the logic of the Philosophers was irresistible.

"Didn't we see him go over and come back? and didn't it blow up the moment he got into the house?" said Trimble.